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Greg Corbino’s Fish Puppets Made from Reclaimed Trash Migrate Along the Hudson River

by Aurelia Butler 21 June 2025, 13:23

2022 performance of “Murmurations”
at the River to River Festival. Photo
by Robin Michals. All images shared with permission

Greg Corbino’s Fish Puppets Made from Reclaimed Trash Migrate Along the Hudson River

June 21, 2025

ArtClimateNature

Kate Mothes

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Beginning in the Adirondack Mountains and flowing south into New York Harbor, the iconic Hudson River stretches 315 miles through scenic valleys and creative towns. It’s also a migration route for numerous species of fish, from sturgeon and bass to herring and eels, which head upstream every year to spawn. Contending with habitat destruction due to pollution and the effects of the climate crisis, the survival of these fish is increasingly imperiled. Fortunately, art and activism have a way of bringing these urgent issues to light while also bridging local communities.

Last weekend marked the inaugural Fish Migration Celebration organized by Riverkeeper, an outfit devoted to protecting and advocating for the health of the Hudson River watershed. Unmissable amid the festivities were a series of large-scale puppets by artist Greg Corbino, part of his ongoing sculpture-meets-performance series, Murmurations.

2022 performance of “Murmurations” at the River to River Festival. Photo by Robin Michals

Corbino designed a larger-than-life gold sturgeon to adorn a sailing ship that led a flotilla from Chelsea Pier in New York City up to Croton-on-Hudson, home of Hudson River Music Festival. Corbino’s papier-mâché marine creatures, ranging from oysters and sturgeon to a seahorse and a whale, performed their own migration, parading along the riverbank in both locations.

The artist describes the collective performance as a “puppet poem of city and sea” and creates each work from plastic trash he removes from New York City waterways and beaches. Through partnerships with events like the Fish Migration Celebration and New York City’s River to River Festival, he aims to highlight the impacts of climate change and raise awareness of increasing plastic pollution in our oceans.

See more of Corbino’s work on his site.

Riverkeeper’s Fish Migration Celebration. Photo by Priya Shah

Riverkeeper’s Fish Migration Celebration. Photo by Rhiannon Catalyst

Riverkeeper’s Fish Migration Celebration. Photo by Priya Shah

2022 performance of “Murmurations” at the River to River Festival. Photo by Robin Michals

Riverkeeper’s Fish Migration Celebration. Photo courtesy of Riverkeeper

2022 performance of “Murmurations” at the River to River Festival. Photo by Robin Michals

Riverkeeper’s Fish Migration Celebration. Photo courtesy of Riverkeeper

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An Astronaut Finds Symbiosis with Nature in Agus Putu Suyadnya’s Uncanny Paintings
by Aurelia Butler 6 June 2025, 20:51
“Utopian Visions of Hope” (2025). All images courtesy of Sapar Contemporary, shared with permission
An Astronaut Finds Symbiosis with Nature in Agus Putu Suyadnya’s Uncanny Paintings
June 6, 2025
ArtClimate
Grace Ebert
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In Symbiotic Utopia, Agus Putu Suyadnya imagines a future in which tropical ecosystems not unlike those of Southeast Asia become sites for humanity to commune with nature.
Surrounded by verdant foliage and moss-covered roots that seem to glow with blue and green fuzz, a recurring astronaut figure approaches each scene with comfort and ease. In one work, the suited character cradles a chimpanzee à la notable conservationist Jane Goodall and waves a large bubble wand to create trails of the iridescent orbs in another. And in “Cosmic Self Healing,” the figure sits in a comfortable chair, a large potted plant at his side. This typical domestic scene, though, is situated on the moon, and Earth’s swirling atmosphere appears behind him.
“Cosmic Self Healing” (2022)
While alluring in color and density, Suyadnya’s paintings are surreal and portend an eerie future irredeemably impacted by the climate crisis. The astronaut, after all, is fully covered in a protective capsule, a sign that people can only survive with this critical adaptation. “Humans cannot live without nature,” the artist says, “whereas the natural world without mankind will continue to survive. So why, as humans, do we think we have the upper hand?”
Symbiotic Utopia is on view through July 7 at Sapar Contemporary in New York. Find more from Suyadnya on Instagram.
Detail of “Cosmic Self Healing” (2022)
“A Hug for Hope”
“Steady Humility Wins Every Time” (2025)
“Yearning for Home” (2024)
“Playful Nature is the Future” (2024)
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Recycled Materials Draw Attention to Ocean Plastics in Ana Brecevic’s Assemblages
by Aurelia Butler 14 May 2025, 16:00
All images courtesy of Ana Brecevic, shared with permission
Recycled Materials Draw Attention to Ocean Plastics in Ana Brecevic’s Assemblages
May 14, 2025
ArtClimateNature
Kate Mothes
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As the climate crisis worsens around the globe, its effects are no more apparent than in our oceans and the communities that rely on them. Delicate coral reefs, for example, face stresses from not only rising sea temperatures but the residue of human presence—plastics, castoff fishing equipment, and other waste.
Warm water is typically the culprit in coral bleaching events, characterized by algae leaving the organisms and turning them a ghostly white. The algae provides a food source and helps to protect the coral from disease, but when it goes, the host is left much more vulnerable. For Ana Brecevic (previously), this phenomenon inspires work that draws attention to this urgent issue.
Her recent series, Plasticum, reflects on the ever-growing problem of plastic pollution in the earth’s oceans while contrasting the beauty of marine ecosystems with their vulnerability to human impact. The artist meticulously cuts silhouettes of bleached corals and gorgonians—also known as sea fans—and ornaments them with baubles reminiscent of debris.
“I live along the Atlantic coast, where I collect marine waste that inspires and feeds into this body of work,” Brecevic says. “Everything is made from recycled paper, upcycled fabrics, and natural dyes.”
The artist describes Plasticum as “a quiet echo of a reality slowly settling in,” where microplastics and waste continually threaten underwater habitats and biodiversity. She says, “Through this work, I hope to spark questions about our connection to living ecosystems and what we choose to see—or overlook.”
Find more on Brecevic’s website and Instagram.
Photo by Marion Saupin
Photo by Marion Saupin
Photo by Marion Saupin
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An Uncanny Postcard Fit for the Era of Climate Catastrophe
by Aurelia Butler 7 May 2025, 22:07
From left: Sunset, Cyanometer, and Air Pollution postcards
An Uncanny Postcard Fit for the Era of Climate Catastrophe
May 7, 2025
ArtClimateDesignNature
Grace Ebert
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Depending on the day, you might look to the sky and see a sea of pale blue or a radiant sunset creeping toward the horizon. If you’re in a major metropolitan area, though, you might also be met with the characteristic red-brown haze of smog.
Berlin-based artist Macarena Ruiz-Tagle is behind the vibrant Cyanometer and Sunset postcards we’ve featured on Colossal (and that have sold out in our shop several times). But she also created a third version designed for those not-so-bright days.
Tiananmen Square, Beijing (November 2013). Photo by Macarena Ruiz-Tagle
The World Health Organization estimates that 99 percent of people on Earth breathe unsafe air, making Ruiz-Tagle’s Air Pollution postcard perhaps the most fitting for our era of climate catastrophe. While a stark contrast to the brilliant blues, yellows, and oranges of the other two, this design is awash in pale pinks and grays to match that of a gloomy, and even soiled, atmosphere. Like the others, the idea is to hold the work up to the sky and mark the corresponding hue before dropping it in the mail.
The interactive card shifts in meaning depending on whether the opening reveals a misty fog or air thick with chemicals, and it’s part of a growing movement to track climate data in a tangible, grassroots manner. “Separating the visual delight of being immersed in a cloud from the intoxicating reality of breathing heavily polluted air, the postcard evokes both the smog that engulfs global cities and the ethereal beauty of fog,” the artist writes. “In its mesmerizing aesthetic ambiguity, the work sustains a space for contemplation within our troubled atmosphere.”
Find all three postcards in the Colossal Shop, and explore more of Ruiz-Tagle’s work on her website.
Air Pollution postcard
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Delicate Ecosystems Converge in Sonja Peterson’s Intricate Cut Paper Compositions
by Aurelia Butler 25 March 2025, 13:30
Detail of “Empire Builder.” All images courtesy of Sonja Peterson, shared with permission
Delicate Ecosystems Converge in Sonja Peterson’s Intricate Cut Paper Compositions
March 25, 2025
ArtClimate
Kate Mothes
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Inspired by nature’s myriad forms and relationships, Minneapolis-based artist Sonja Peterson creates sprawling scenes from intricately cut paper. Working intuitively while focusing on the environment and our place within it, she merges organic motifs and animals with humans and historical references.
The inherent simplicity of a blank piece of paper is a compelling attribute for Peterson, who is fascinated by the possibilities of texture, pattern, and the relationship between positive and negative space. Originally, the artist made drawings on large sheets, which she began to cut into in order to rearrange compositional elements. She became increasingly interested in the art of the incision and removed other media altogether.
“Lost and Searching”
“My choice of paper echoes the idea of the fragility that I want to convey as I look at the precariousness of ecological systems,” Peterson tells Colossal. “The works’ structural integrity is, at times, reliant on its interconnectivity; if elements disconnect, the entire system is in threat of collapsing.”
An overarching theme in Peterson’s work revolves around interconnection—both natural and human-made—highlighting how our global trade systems, manufacturing, and agriculture are fundamentally reliant on our environment, even as they contribute to an ever-growing climate crisis. She often combines human interactions with botanical details, like a sunken ship in “Lost and Searching” or the salient history of European colonialist expansion in “Empire Builder.”
The artist is interested in our “global systems as something of untamed wonder, a gaze that was once reserved for the natural world,” she says. She often juxtaposes botanical details with human-made structures, such as ships or buildings. “Nature is now often seen as contained patchwork or a constructed binary to a technological world that is now the wild frontier.”
Peterson’s work is currently on view in Nordic Echoes — Tradition in Contemporary Art at Scandinavia House, which runs from April 5 to August 2 in New York City. The show celebrates contemporary folk arts from the Upper Midwest, featuring more than 50 works by 24 artists. Find more on the Peterson’s website and Instagram.
“The Undergound Plot of the Royal Pommes Frites,” cut paper and acrylic on wallpaper, approximately 72 x 50 inches
Detail of “The Undergound Plot of the Royal Pommes Frites”
Detail of “Lost and Searching,” cut paper and acrylic on wall, 114 x 50 inches
“Empire Builder” (2022), hand-cut paper and acrylic on wall, 106 x 64 inches
“Ghost Ship Part 1” (2022), cut paper, 112 x 50 inches. All images courtesy of Sonja Peterson, shared with permission
“Inferno Seeks Shelter.” Photo by E. G. Schempf
“Layered Losses,” hand-cut paper, 50 x 58 inches
Detail of “Lost and Searching”
Installing “Navigator,” cut paper. Photo by Jennifer Phelps
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Vintage Postcard Paintings by David Opdyke Demonstrate an Ecological Future in Peril
by Aurelia Butler 19 March 2025, 13:38
“Overlook” (2025). gouache, acrylic, ink, and 42 vintage postcards
on panel, 32 x 40 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, shared with permission
Vintage Postcard Paintings by David Opdyke Demonstrate an Ecological Future in Peril
March 19, 2025
ArtClimate
Kate Mothes
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The first known postcard printed as a souvenir can be traced to Vienna in 1871, followed by commemorative cards for famous events like the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889 and the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. It wasn’t long before a fashion for picture postcards took the U.S. by storm throughout the first half of the 20th century.
For David Opdyke, the iconic correspondences form the groundwork for an artistic practice examining capitalism, globalization, consumerism, and our fraught and increasingly disconnected relationship with the environment. Occasionally darkly humorous yet steeped in a sense of foreboding, his uncanny scenes suggest what kind of world we might live in we do nothing to stem the mounting climate crisis.
“Charismatic Megafauna” (2024), gouache and ink on vintage postcard, 4 x 6 inches
Opdyke summons idyllic coastlines, national parks, government monuments, wildlife, and civic infrastructure to weave “fractured yet cohesive topographies,” says Cristin Tierney Gallery, which is presenting the artist’s current solo exhibition, Waiting for the Future.
For nearly a decade, Opdyke has invoked the nostalgia of landscape postcards to interrogate the climate emergency within the context of American politics and geographies. “Through these carefully altered compositions, Opdyke merges the past and the future, presenting both urgent and inevitable visions of environmental upheaval,” the gallery says.
The artist often uses antique cards that he purchases on eBay, painting scenes of environmental disasters or discordances between nature and architecture. Alternating between cartoons and life-like portrayals of trees, animals, fires, and structures, his compositions range from single cards to wall-spanning assemblages, his gouache-painted details spreading from frame to frame.
In “Overlook,” for example, giant tentacles destroy bridges, rising sea water threatens cities, and huge fires rage in institutional buildings. A dome encloses a metropolis, a rocket named Mars 2 heads for a new home in the solar system, and an airplane banner advertises “Technology Will Save Us” in a bleak yet not unimaginable reality fueled by techno-utopianism.
“Enough of Nature” (2025), gouache, acrylic, and ink on 500 vintage postcards, 104 x 168 inches
In his large-scale “Enough of Nature,” Opdyke transforms natural landscapes into encampment sites for those displaced from their homes, and portions of the overall composition appear to dislodge from the main grid as if floating away.
Caught tenuously between outmoded industrial practices, shifting societal value systems, and a rapidly evolving climate crisis, Opdyke’s pieces point to once-idealized symbols of American progress to stress the dangers of ignoring our own impact on the environment.
Waiting for the Future underscores the precariousness of complacency, a “cautionary tale,” the gallery says, laying bare the fragility of our constructed environment.
The show continues through April 26 in New York City. Find more on the artist’s website.
Detail of “Overlook”
“Main Stage” (2015-2020), gouache on vintage postcard, 6 x 4 inches
“Unity, Industry, Victory” (2024), gouache and ink on vintage postcard, 6 x 4 inches
“Insurrection” (2015-2020), gouache on vintage postcard, 4 x 6 inches
“Fourth Wall” (2015-2020), gouache on vintage postcard, 4 x 6 inches
“If you can’t say something nice” (2024), gouache and ink on two vintage postcards, 4 x 12 1/2 inches
“Breaking In” (2015-2020), gouache on vintage postcard, 6 x 4 inches
Detail of “Enough of Nature”
“First Contact” (2023), gouache and ink on vintage postcard, 4 x 6 inches
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Mandy Barker’s Cyanotypes Revive a Pioneering Botanist’s Book to Warn About Synthetic Debris
by Aurelia Butler 18 March 2025, 13:06
Jersey boxers (Gigartina sunday). All images from ‘Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections’ by Mandy Barker, published by GOST Books. All images © Mandy Barker, courtesy of the author and GOST, shared with permission
Mandy Barker’s Cyanotypes Revive a Pioneering Botanist’s Book to Warn About Synthetic Debris
March 18, 2025
ArtBooksClimateNatureScience
Kate Mothes
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“In 2012, I found a piece of material in a rock pool that changed my life,” artist Mandy Barker says. “Mistaking this moving piece of cloth for seaweed started the recovery of synthetic clothing from around the coastline of Britain for the next ten years.”
Barker is known for her photographic practice that takes a deep dive into marine debris. Her work has been featured in publications like National Geographic, The Guardian, VOGUE, and many more. Often collaborating with scientists to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the earth’s oceans, she eloquently highlights its harmful impacts on marine habitats, wildlife, and all of us who depend on the ocean for sustenance.
Patterned blouse (Laminaria materia)
Forthcoming from GOST Books, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections surveys the unexpected and out-of-place along British shores. At first glance, each specimen appears like a fragment of a leaf or a scatter of organic material, but upon closer inspection, the subjects of Barker’s images reveal details of unraveled polyester or scraps of nylon tights.
Barker hopes to raise awareness of the damaging effects of fast fashion, synthetic clothing, and the increasing amounts of microfibers in the oceans. The fashion industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all international flights and container ships combined and is also the second-largest consumer of water, requiring about 2,000 gallons of water to produce a single pair of jeans.
Barker’s new book is composed as an homage to the work of trailblazing botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (1799-1871), who is thought to be the first woman to take a photograph and the first person to publish a book containing photographic illustrations. Her 1843 study, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, employed blue photograms to illustrate photosynthetic organisms and seaweeds.
Barker’s work serves as a kind of sibling or sequel to Atkins’ pioneering publication, presented in a similar style with handwritten names in Latin beneath each specimen.
Coat lining (Dichloria vestis)
In their updated versions, the titles take Atkins’ scientific names as a starting point and tweak them just slightly to conjure references to clothing or the human body. In the plate titled “Dichloris vestis,” for example, Barker draws on a real type of algae Atkins catalogued, Dichloria viridis, but “vestis” is instead a tongue-in-cheek reference to outerwear, often made of polyester or other synthetic materials. “Conferva tibia,” which portrays frayed tights, employs the Latin word for “leg.”
From John o’ Groats at the northernmost tip of Great Britain to Land’s End at its southernmost, Barker recovered specimens of clothing from more than 120 beaches. Her finds, ranging from parkas to wigs to sports jerseys, were pulled from the sand, tide pools, or directly from the sea. In Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections, Barker looks to the past to better understand how our actions in the present have both immediate impacts and will shape the future of the climate crisis.
Find your copy on GOST’s online store, where signed editions are also available, and explore more of Barker’s work on her website and Instagram.
Nylon tights (Conferva tibia)
Shawl (Odonthalia amiculum), shown on a spread from ‘Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections’ by Mandy Barker
Jacket lining (Rhodomenia ignotus)
Fishnet tights (Chylocladia funda)
Two Blouses (Asperococcus indusium)
Synthetic fur hood (Myrionema Palliolum)
Lining (with algae) (Grateloupia intra)
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Paradise and Precarity Merge in Jessica Taylor Bellamy’s Paintings of Los Angeles Life
by Aurelia Butler 7 February 2025, 14:57
“American Airlines Passenger Ticket 1 (after Warhol)” (2023), oil on canvas, 32 x 59 inches
Paradise and Precarity Merge in Jessica Taylor Bellamy’s Paintings of Los Angeles Life
February 7, 2025
ArtClimate
Kate Mothes
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For Jessica Taylor Bellamy, juxtapositions, transparency, and layers shape a way of working that evokes her family history and notions of home and landscape. Born to an Ashkenazi Jewish mother and an Afro-Cuban Jamaican father, Bellamy was raised in Whittier, just southeast of Los Angeles.
In glowing oil paintings, she draws from personal mementos like photographs, sales receipts, and newspaper clippings to explore the relationships between utopia and dystopia, humans and nature, image and text, and fantasy and reality.
“Did She Nail It?” (2025), oil on canvas, 26 x 20 inches
Bellamy portrays sunsets, landscapes, trees, urban streets, flora, animals, and cloud formations in a kind of dreamy washiness, adding patterns like chainlink fences, gates, and lace curtains suggestive of boundaries. Horizontal landscapes overlaid with American Airlines tickets echo Andy Warhol’s 1960s silkscreen prints of SAS airline tickets merged with floral motifs.
“Bellamy’s observations are rooted in her experiences of the sprawling urban landscape of Los Angeles—a meeting of nature and civilization at the edge of a precarious paradise, formed by fire, drought, flood, and wind,” says a statement from Anat Ebgi, which represents the artist and opens her new solo exhibition, Temperature Check.
A few works shown here, like “Did She Nail It?,” appear in the show, which merges landscapes and atmospheric lighting effects with references to DIY culture, what’s gendered as “men’s work,” and car and motorcycle culture. The Home Depot receipt, which typically uses the slogan “Did we nail it?,” is combined with an image of a rear-view mirror depicted so close that it initially appears abstract.
Bellamy examines the dualities and precarity of life in Southern California—a seeming paradise we’ve witnessed can be swiftly devastated by fire and drought. The title Temperature Change is also a double entendre, suggesting meteorological readings and a figurative expression used when measuring a group mood or opinion. Through surreal imagery and echoes of mass production and consumerism, the artist invokes a noir reverie.
Temperature Check runs from February 8 to March 22 in Los Angeles. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
“Box Fan (AM)” (2025), oil on canvas, 57 1/2 x 32 inches
“American Airlines Passenger Ticket 2 (after Warhol)” (2023), oil on canvas, 32 x 60 inches
“Playa Larga (Coquina Combination Pill Pack)” (2023), oil on canvas, 23 3/4 x 42 1/2 inches
“A Subspecies of Journalism” (2023), oil on canvas, 59 x 43 1/2 inches
“A Splendid Paradox” (2022), oil on canvas, 70 x 52 inches
“Curtain of Sky” (2024), oil on canvas, 57 1/2 x 48 inches
“Horizontal Thrust I (Blue graffiti highway)” (2025), oil on canvas, 26 x 70 inches
“Driveway Moment” (2025), oil on canvas, 57 1/2 x 47 inches
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Elemental Shifts and Enigmatic Narratives Anchor Rupy C. Tut’s Mystical Paintings
by Aurelia Butler 3 February 2025, 12:58
“A River of Dreams” (2024), handmade pigments on linen, 62 x 42 1/4 x 2 inches framed. Photos by Phillip Maisel. All images courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco
Elemental Shifts and Enigmatic Narratives Anchor Rupy C. Tut’s Mystical Paintings
February 3, 2025
ArtClimateSocial Issues
Kate Mothes
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Verdant scenery inhabited by vibrant wildlife and graceful feminine figures center in the work of Rupy C. Tut, whose paintings (previously) draw upon her Sikh ancestry and experiences emigrating from India as a young girl. “As an environmentalist and Indian-American woman, she never takes place for granted,” says a statement from Jessica Silverman Gallery, which represents the artist.
Tut’s ethereal works tread the boundaries between abstraction, portraiture, pattern, and traditional Indian painting. Her compositions introduce narratives—often captivatingly mysterious—that highlight enigmatic mystical, elemental, and spiritual phenomena.
“Bursting with Clouds” (2024) handmade pigments on linen, 41 1/2 x 61 1/2 x 2 1/4 inches framed
The artist’s subjects typically exist front-and-center, like in “A River of Dreams,” in which a figure sits in a stream and observes a lily while dark clouds move in above. Motifs of darkening skies and dramatic change continue in recent works like “Bursting with Clouds” and “The First Rain.”
Oscillating between idyllic paradises, anxieties around climate disasters, and gender constraints, Tut focuses on female figures, turning the tables on a genre that typically focuses on male achievements. “I question traditional roles and labels while preserving traditional practices,” she says.
Tut was a 2024 recipient of the Joan Mitchel Foundation Fellowship, and her work is on view in the group exhibition About Place at San Francisco’s de Young through the end of November. You can explore more on her website and Instagram.
“A Place Dear to Me” (2024), handmade pigments on linen, 61 1/2 x 41 1/2 x 2 1/4 inches framed
“The First Rain” (2024), handmade pigments on linen, 61 1/2 x 41 1/2 x 2 1/4 inches framed
“Riding my Thunder” (2024), handmade pigments on linen, 61 1/2 x 41 1/2 x 2 inches framed
“Where Dreams Flow” (2024), handmade pigments on linen, 42 1/8 x 82 x 2 inches framed
“Bowing to the Cosmos” (2024), handmade pigments on linen, 61 3/8 x 41 5/8 x 2 inches framed
“Archipelago” (2024), handmade pigments on linen; diptych, 61 1/2 x 83 x 2 1/4 inches overall, framed
“Escaping the Heat” (2024), handmade pigments on hemp paper, 13 3/4 x 18 3/8 x 1 1/2 inches framed
“A Natural Thought” (2025), handmade pigments on linen, 81 1/2 x 41 1/2 x 2 inches framed
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climate

Latest story

Greg Corbino’s Fish Puppets Made from Reclaimed Trash Migrate Along the Hudson River

More stories

An Astronaut Finds Symbiosis with Nature in Agus Putu Suyadnya’s Uncanny Paintings

Recycled Materials Draw Attention to Ocean Plastics in Ana Brecevic’s Assemblages

An Uncanny Postcard Fit for the Era of Climate Catastrophe

Delicate Ecosystems Converge in Sonja Peterson’s Intricate Cut Paper Compositions

Vintage Postcard Paintings by David Opdyke Demonstrate an Ecological Future in Peril

Mandy Barker’s Cyanotypes Revive a Pioneering Botanist’s Book to Warn About Synthetic Debris

Paradise and Precarity Merge in Jessica Taylor Bellamy’s Paintings of Los Angeles Life

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